Issue 12 News from the Architectural Association AARCHITECTURE Beyond Entropy, When Energy Becomes Form PG 6 Diploma 7: Kiteweb in Beirut PG 4 If you go to the Greenwich Observatory, there is a line inscribed into the ground. It is, in a sense, an act of writing. Tom McCarthy: Greenwich Degree Zero PG 10 Member visit to Littlehampton PG 16 Indepedent Means PG 2 VERSO AARCHITECTURE ISSUE 12 AARCHITECTURE CONTRIBUTORS Architectural Association (Inc.) News from the Julin Ang Registered Charity No. 311083 2 Independent Means Architectural Association [email protected] Company limited by guarantee Issue 12 / Spring 2010 Registered in England No. 171402 4 Diploma Unit 7: Kiteweb in Beirut www.aaschool.ac.uk Ed Bottoms Registered office as above [email protected] ©2010 6 Beyond Entropy, All rights reserved Mollie Claypool Published by the [email protected] When Energy Becomes Form Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, Jan Nauta London WC1B 3ES [email protected] 8 Camouflage: A Catalogue of Effects Contact: Lucy Priest 10 Tom McCarthy: Greenwich Degree Zero [email protected] www.fletcherpriest.com Nicola Quinn +44 (0)20 7887 4033 Stefano Rabolli Pansera 12 One Angel Lane Please send your news items for the next [email protected] issue to [email protected] 13 Enabling: The Work of Minimaforms Kristen Woods EDITORIAL BOARD [email protected] Alex Lorente, Membership 14 Public Occasion Agency Brett Steele, AA School Director Zak Kyes, AA Art Director 16 Members’ visit to Littlehampton EDITORIAL TEAM Nicola Quinn, Managing Editor 18 New and Forthcoming from Wayne Daly and Claire McManus, Graphic Designers AA Publications: Spring 2010 Scrap Marshall and Manijeh Verghese, Student Editors 19 Book Launches and Events at the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sue Barr AA Bookshop Valerie Bennett Kathleen Formosa Esther McLaughlin 20 AA Honorary Memberships Luisa Miller Charlotte Newman 21 News Theo Spyropoulos Printed by Cassochrome, Belgium 1 AA Archive Recent visits to the AA Archives by the Twentieth 15 units of about 17 students each; Rowse’s aim being Independent Means Century Society and Archives for London have to encourage teamwork, analytical enquiry and provided something of an opportunity to consider problem solving, with research and planning projects By Edward Bottoms afresh and present to outsiders the history of the for housing schemes and slum clearances replacing the Association. Perhaps unsurprisingly the majority of esquisse. These changes eventually proved extremely questions, comments and feedback received tended to popular with students: in fact, they demanded that focus upon the remarkable survival of the AA’s fiercely they should go further, and set out their ideas in their independent tradition of self-governance. This status infamous ‘Yellow Book’ of June 1937 and in the has arguably proven to be one the Association’s journal FOCUS. They met with opposition, however, greatest strengths, permitting the school to operate from the AA Council and Rowse’s superior – the with a freedom and flexibility dreamt of in the state Director of Education, HS Goodhart-Rendel. Matters sector, avoiding many of the strictures of came to a head in May 1938 when, in an attempt to bureaucracies, committees and research assessments. reverse the move away from the Beaux-Arts, Rowse Yet for all this, it is relatively unknown that for a was dismissed by Council and replaced by the French period of just over 30 years, from 1939 to 1970, the classicist Fernand Billerrey. AA’s founding body was essentially disenfranchised. Against this background the Board of Since the publication of Sir John Summerson’s Education, which provided a sizeable annual grant brief centennial history of 1947 it has become to the AA, was becoming extremely concerned. In something of a commonplace to describe the AA June 1938 the Council was finally informed that the as having been formed by ‘a pack of troublesome Board would withdraw funding “unless immediate students’.1 Whilst certainly true, the AA was very steps were taken to stop the students controlling the much a reaction against the vested interests and affairs of the Association through their voting inadequacies inherent in the system of articled powers.” Consequently, new battle lines were opened pupilage, the founding ‘students’ not establishing what up, with the Council proposing to make all new we would consider a school but taking as their students probationary members, without voting organisational model that of an association, or club, powers or the ability to stand for Council. The with all members correspondingly possessing the following month, forced by the prospect of complete ability to vote for a General Committee. This internal conflict, and strike action, Goodhart-Rendel situation endured unchanged through the resigned and in truly dramatic fashion, at midnight development of a more formal schedule of evening during the end-of-term dance, it was announced that classes in the 1860s and 70s, major reorganisation and the unit system was to be retained. Nevertheless, even reforms of the 1880s and 90s and the eventual launch while celebrations for this victory were taking place a of a Day School in 1901. Indeed, admittance to the postal ballot of all AA members was being prepared on Day School was conditional upon full membership the issue of probationary membership. The of the parent association, a fact that prevented women mobilisation of the entire AA membership’s voting from becoming students until 1918. powers heavily outnumbered the students’ voting All this was to change in a handful of turbulent capacity and in January 1939 the student vote was years from the mid 1930s onwards. As Elizabeth formally abolished. Darling and Mark Crinson have written, a cocktail In the years immediately following the war the of a highly politicised student body, new staff issue of the student vote was repeatedly raised. appointments and demands from the Board of However it was not until 1956, after lengthy Education resulted not only in the final banishment of negotiations, that the then Ministry of Education the Beaux-Arts system and the introduction of a agreed to some concessions – allowing students course structure and curriculum based upon limited voting rights but still not permitting them to modernist principles, but also in the loss of the student stand for Council. Ironically enough, it was not until vote. The catalyst can be traced to the appointment the late 1960s when the AA was negotiating for entry of EAA Rowse in 1933 as head of the AA’s newly into the state university system, via merger with established School of Planning, and then, two years Imperial College of Science and Technology, that later, as successor to the Principal, Howard Robertson. the issue was thoroughly re-examined. Indeed, the Rowse was heavily influenced by the visionary restoration of full membership and voting rights was sociologist Patrick Geddes and set about introducing passed by Council in the spring of 1970, just months sociological methods of organisation and town after Imperial withdrew citing concerns at the planning. He brought in a raft of young, left-wing reluctance of the school community to accept and [1938 Parody Menu] ‘A dish best served cold... 1938 student parody of the Special Extraordinary Meeting to decide tutors and in 1936 changed the entire academic be bound by the merger terms. on student vote. The menu refers to key staff and Council members, including Geffrey Jellicoe, Stanley Hamp, structure so that the old five-year course structure was HS Goodhart-Rendel, Frank Yerbury and Fernand Billery.’ replaced with a unit system combining students into Edward Bottoms is the AA Archivist 2 3 AA School Work and School Life: AA Workshop and Installation, October 2009 Diploma Unit 7: Kiteweb in Beirut By Julin Ang Amidst wild gestures, terrible Arabic pronunciation between Diploma 7 students and local children. and our taxi driver’s confused phone call to our local The handle of each kite formed the connector for guide, we finally arrived on a busy shopping street in each node of the adjustable elastic web. Each child left the Palestinian refugee camp of Bourj el-Barajneh. A the workshop with their own kite, personally few minutes later our guide, Mariam, emerged from a decorated to their own taste. mysterious corner and warmly rescued us from our The workshop took place in two locations. The confusion. first one was in a local community centre in Bourj “What do you want to see?” she asked. el-Barajneh camp, and organised in collaboration with “Everything,” we replied. local NGOs: El-Rahelet (The Outings), the Women’s Immediately we were thrust into a maze of Programme Centre and Social Support Society. The twisting, narrow alleyways. These streets, often barely second took place at El Buss camp in South Lebanon, wide enough for three to walk abreast, were at once just outside the city of Tyre. With UNRWA’s help, we fascinating. We were a far cry from London’s neatly staged a workshop with children at Deir Yassin paved city sidewalks – as well as the smog and shouts School. In each case, our arrival was accompanied of Beirut proper. There was no perceptible link by 40m2 of white ripstop nylon, four sets of bamboo between where we began and where we reached. Our blinds, 170 laser-cut kite-handles, armfuls of bright confusion was exacerbated by the lack of any form of orange kite tails, a mini sewing machine and an street numbers, names or structured urban pattern. essential abundance of enthusiasm. This dense fabric of the city is a part of Beirut We set up our stations: one for lashing bamboo veiled from most visitors. A city of diversity and together, one for marking out the kites, one for the contradiction, its exuberant nightlife is juxtaposed sewing of pockets and tails and one for attaching the Children of the Beirut refugee camp, Borj el-Barajneh, celebrate the completion of their kites.